Zeros Music Group

reporting from san diego Climbing onto the small stage at Bar Pink for an afternoon sound check, Javier Escovedo, singer-guitarist for the Zeros, unloads a flash of ringing guitar during "Cosmetic Couple" and snarls into a microphone: "When it gets dark we all come out / looking for love, ready to rock out / We look so pretty, so so dressed up / Walking down the city, so so messed up." Unfurled behind him is a hand-painted backdrop of red circles descending into a vivid bull's-eye.